Flexible Sensors Map Real Time Cardiac Activities

Researchers at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have developed flexible silicon sensors that can be wrapped around a live, beating heart to get a cardiac map of its electrical activity. The flexible circuits also work when immersed in bodily fluids. This is a significant experiment, as it could replace current heart monitoring techniques which only create a point by point map of the heart. In contrast, the sensor array can map large areas of the heart with more than 2,000 silicon nanomembrane transistors.

In future, this research could lead to minimally invasive treatments of arrhythmic hearts with erratic beats. It may also be more effective in monitoring the brain for unusual electrical activity such as epilepsy.